


King of the Fall

by cristianoronaldo



Category: Football RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2015-06-25
Packaged: 2018-04-06 03:30:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4206309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cristianoronaldo/pseuds/cristianoronaldo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>summer camp au<br/>Read the notes. They're important.</p>
            </blockquote>





	King of the Fall

**Author's Note:**

> so @cinnpa on twitter requested that I write a tonisco, and since I'm not a fan of the pairing at all, I had to start over several times. I ended up writing Razorblade instead... but I had this fic half finished, so I just decided to finish, touch it up, and post. 
> 
> If it has similarities to Razorblade, it's because it was the step before creating that one.

They had nothing to do in the middle of summer, so they decided to cause trouble and fill out some applications for a summer camp. It was the summer after their first year in college, and it had been awhile since they last talked, so the air was full of possibility and wonder, and they had not yet exhausted their supply of pleasant conversation and had not yet delved into their true past. So they sat there and they smiled, and they watched the fan on Isco’s ceiling go round and round, tired and panting and slow. 

 

“What would you say my best quality is?” Isco perched on the end of his bed thoughtfully, tucking the pen between his lips. “Is it my hair? Maybe I should put my hair.” 

 

“Put your kindness,” Alvaro shot back with a snort, and he tugged the application out of Isco’s hand and replaced it with his own. And that is how it came to be that Alvaro Morata filled out Isco’s application and Isco filled out Alvaro’s, and both applications were, to put it gently, bullshit. 

 

But that is also how it came to be that both Alvaro and Isco were called back for interviews, and they had to sit through the interviews and lie through their teeth about trips to Harvard’s library and vacations in Sardegna and truly moving experiences during Sunday Mass. Luckily, Alvaro was a good liar and Isco was innocent-looking enough to pull it off. 

 

They were hired quickly and efficiently, and for a good three weeks, they forgot about the job entirely. They spent their evenings with friends, going to parties and getting drunk and having fun but mostly just getting drunk. Sometimes they jumped into pools with their clothes on and sometimes they were holding hands when it happened, and it never ended in anything more than wistful glances and silent apologies, but it was something more than pleasant conversation and watching a ceiling fan, so they both considered it progress. 

 

The morning after a particularly exciting time at some friend of a friend’s house, they woke up and realized that it was two days before they had to be presentable enough to run a summer camp full of high school students, which was both terrifying and close to impossible. If not impossible, improbable. They were both covered in a thick sheen of sweat and the disgusting smell of two-day-old clothing and vodka. 

 

They stumbled around for the rest of the day, struggling to clean and pack and puke only in the direction of the trash can. They succeeded and slept. They slept and waited. And finally, the night before they were due in a city seventy miles east of where they were located in the heart of Michigan, they drove. 

 

Alvaro drove first because he was pushy and conceited and because he didn’t want to take the more difficult hours as the deadline grew closer. They waved goodbye to their parents, who were secretly happy the boys had something to fill their time, and Alvaro drove until they reached a gas station. They picked up cookies and chips and sodas and stuffed their faces until they felt like driving again, and then Isco took over and they drove until they reached a dreary camp in the middle of nowhere. 

 

For the most part it was green and lush. There was a strawberry field and a big white house on a hill that overlooked everything and a forest that looked like a place they would have to chaperone. There were picnic tables covered in food and flies, and kids milling anxiously around them. There were three large buses and a fourth just beginning to park, and there were parents pulling up and helping their kids with luggage and pulling them into last minute, embarrassing hugs. 

 

Alvaro said they had made a mistake and that he wanted to turn around right away, but Isco pocketed the keys and said, “We have to do this, alright? We signed up, and we’re going to get paid. Just suck it up for a few weeks, and then we’ll be done.” 

 

“A few weeks. I hope you realize that you just said a few weeks, not days. _Weeks_.” 

 

Isco ignored him, and he went to a table to sign in, and he cheerfully accepted a lanyard with his name on it, and a bright orange t-shirt that made no one happy or handsome. The more experienced camp leaders explained the rules again, as they had before the interview, and they showed Alvaro and Isco around camp. 

 

It was beautiful, and for a minute of his life, he didn’t feel so trapped. That was how he felt at home, with Alvaro and everyone breathing down his neck with expectations and worry, but out there under the lazy clouds, in that orange t-shirt like a raw sunburn, he felt the shadow of potential. 

 

Alvaro bumped his arm, and they walked out toward the lake. There was a wooden dock on the far side, and some kids were stripping down to their swimsuits and diving into deep water. They were shouting and splashing and carefree, and Alvaro was looking at them and smiling, and he bumped Isco’s arm again and didn’t say anything for a long time. 

 

And in that moment, Isco realized their period of pleasant conversation and ignoring the past would have to end at some point. He knew there would be an end before, but there was a clear and distinct difference between recognizing an end was imminent and _feeling_ an end approaching. 

 

“About last summer...” Alvaro began, shoving his hands in his pockets. 

 

He looked down at his feet and didn’t say anything else, but then he half-looked up at Isco from beneath his lashes, and Isco felt something move in his heart or his gut, some affection for his friend that was long since buried beneath guilt and compassion and concern for things greater than momentary crushes. 

 

“I feel like we should talk about it,” Alvaro began again, “But I’m not sure what there is to say.” 

 

“I don’t know,” Isco said, checking his phone for the time. He pretended to be very concerned about the time when really he was just pathetically concerned with how close Alvaro was standing and how pretty and familiar he looked in his soft, ripped sweatshirt. 

 

“Is it time to go?” Alvaro asked wearily. 

 

“Yeah, we’ve got five minutes before we meet the other counselors.” He stayed standing right where he was, looking at the other boy as blankly as he could manage. He tried to keep his tone light, but he was thinking about things that he would rather have kept buried. 

 

“Later then,” Alvaro said simply, as if it was easy to bring something up again and again, expecting different results and a different kind of pain. 

 

So they trudged back through the tall grass and past the strawberry field and past the orange trees and the kids getting out of cars, red-faced and joyful. They stopped in front of the white house on the hill, and Alvaro said something about how he hoped to God no one would tell ghost stories around a campfire. And then they walked inside, and as Isco’s eyes adjusted to the light, he noticed the others gathered there in equally ugly orange t-shirts. 

 

One of them was short and angry. Someone introduced him as Daniel, and he immediately shouted that it was _Dani_ and if anyone called him Daniel they would get thrown in the lake, but Isco saw him interact with his small group later, and he had never seen anyone kinder or more supportive. Dani watched the younger students like a mother hen and when one of them opened up with a sob story, he cried right along with them, mopping up his tears with the corner of his camp shirt. He was short and angry, but he had a genuine heart that made the campers trust him instantly. 

 

To the left of him stood a shy, always pleasant boy who was probably a year or two older than Isco and Alvaro. He had sandy-colored hair, and a wide smile. He was almost instantly forgettable, and Isco had to mutter his name several times under his breath every time they passed each other in order to not forget it. _Asier, Asier, Asier_ he would tell himself, and the other boy would pass with a wide grin and a pleasant wave of his hand. 

 

There was Angry, Forgettable, and then someone standing in the corner that was something else entirely, and when Isco saw him, his heart did not light up, but it seemed to skip a beat, and when he drew in a breath, it was more difficult, like the air around him had turned more dense and more dangerous with the appearance of this boy. There was a flicker of interest in the other boy’s eyes when he saw Isco and Alvaro, but he softened it instantly, made himself reasonable again and approached them both with an outstretched hand. 

 

“Toni,” he said. 

 

Isco smiled, and Alvaro smiled beside him, and later when they were sitting around a table with their small groups of high schoolers, Alvaro leaned over to steal a pickle from Isco’s plate and muttered, “You’re into him.” 

 

“What are you talking about?” 

 

“Toni. That other counselor.” He kept his voice low and his mouth covered, well aware that the campers under their watch would use any excuse to fuck with them. “You think he’s nice looking.” 

 

“I think a lot of people are nice looking.” His palms were sweating and he wiped them on his pants calmly. “Doesn’t mean I’m into him. Besides, I barely know him.” 

 

“Well, we’re at a summer camp where we’re supposed to share the darkest parts of our soul,” he muttered sarcastically. “So I’m sure you’ll get to know him better.” 

 

“Or at least I’ll get to know the darkest parts of his soul,” Isco returned mockingly. 

 

They sweated through the first night, and they had to confiscate a six pack of cheap beer and cheaper boxed wine. They kept it locked in the counselor’s cabinet in the boy’s quarters until Maria, one of the other counselors, unlocked it with her key and found it and said, “We should probably throw this out because I don’t trust you boys with it.” 

 

Toni assured her that none of them would drink it, but Alvaro shrugged, and Maria’s eyes darted anxiously around his face a few times before her cheeks glowed red with a sweet blush. She said, “I’ll bring it back to the House” and she trudged up the hill to the white house to stuff it into the garbage can in the kitchen. 

 

Once that last bit of hope was gone, Alvaro descended into a post-apocalyptic gloom that not even the presence of Maria could drag him out of. Isco half-watched Toni and half-watched the developing romance between Alvaro and Maria. He was stuck somewhere between jealousy and moving on, stuck between missing the familiarity of a boy and understanding that missing was returning to a place where dark things had died. 

 

She flitted around his chair like the most beautiful moth to be attracted to light, all the while her cheeks turning the loveliest shade of light pink, more beautiful than the roses that lined the path up to the white house on the hill. She was more beautiful than the sunrise in the morning when everything in the world was as it should be, more beautiful than the sunset at night, when the darkness was easing in and covering everything that had gone wrong in the unholy hours between sunrise and sunset. More beautiful than anything around them with her strong features and delicate, joyful voice, but Alvaro paid her no mind, only glancing her way when she was stripping down to her swimsuit with a lazy glance over her shoulder in his direction. 

 

Alvaro sat on lawn chairs and longed for the freedom, for the lack of responsibility, for the promise of a summer with him and Isco and the possibility of speaking about things that could not be put into words. He wanted Maria-- or rather, he wanted to want Maria, but there was something holding him back. Like Isco, he was too far gone in the familiarity of what they had lost. He needed to sort out the pain in his head before he was swept up by something new. 

 

So Maria went on blushing and Alvaro stumbled around, confused and mournful, and Isco went on speaking, casually with the other counselors and nervously with Toni. They understood the general outlines of the lives of those around them. Isco knew that Maria had just turned eighteen, and she was headed off to Yale, and she was smarter than all of them put together, probably, except she had fallen for Alvaro, and Isco knew from personal experience that this was not smart at all. Dani, besides being short and angry, was intensely devoted to protecting the environment, and he shouted at people when they didn’t recycle. Asier was soft-spoken, but the more he grew comfortable around people, the more he opened up, and when he did, he was quiet and calm and natural, not uptight and clammy and uncomfortable. They grew to know each other vaguely in the beginning of that long summer, and there was a period of peace and prosperity, despite Maria’s longing and Alvaro’s confusion and Isco’s uncertainty. 

 

They were all happy in the way only casual friends could be, unburdened by the despair of secrets and untreated wounds. After curfew, they went to the lake and they swam in the dark water, and Maria and Victoria and Esther were glowing nymphs that, despite not capturing Isco’s heart, were interesting and beautiful and lovely, and he loved them like he would love his own sisters, except more and dispassionately, with the kind of love that would drive a brother mad and a boyfriend to end things in tatters. He looked at them, and he recognized that he should want them, and he was not completely certain that he did not, but when he pictured himself together with one of them or all of them, there was a moral confusion somewhere in his bones that let him know this was not the way. 

 

He pictured himself with Alvaro, and he pictured himself with Toni, and he even pictured himself with one of the seniors in high school at one point, and there was a completely different feeling. He shut his mind down because he did not trust his thoughts or his body or his own hands, and he needed everything to remain calm and uncomplicated, so he smiled at Maria and Victoria and Esther, and he talked to them like he would talk to his own sisters, except more and dispassionately, and he let them know with his actions that they did not capture his heart, but he let them know with his eyes that he wished they had. 

 

One day Toni brushed by him when they were chaperoning a game of Capture the Flag, and he said, reasonably, “I think we should drink that alcohol Maria stuffed in the trash can in the white house.” 

 

And Isco looked at him and felt something in his stomach leap and he said, “If she stuffed it in the trash can, isn’t it...” His palms were sweating, and he did a funny thing with his mouth. “...I don’t know, gone?” 

 

“Don’t be ridiculous. I took it out. What a waste.” 

 

“Right. How ridiculous of me to assume you would have left the alcohol in the trash where it belongs.” 

 

Toni gave him a strange look, and he turned to break up a fight that hadn’t yet started before glancing over his shoulder at Isco and saying, “Are you in?” 

 

Isco looked behind him to find Alvaro. “Should I tell the others?” 

 

“No.” 

 

So that was how it began, with the two of them sneaking into the white house to find where Toni and Dani had stashed the beer earlier. They snuck back out through the back door and raced into the woods to find a warm, lighted place near the wooden dock. Later, they crept onto one of the sailboats and laid out a blanket, and that’s where they kissed for the first time and where they looked at the stars and felt ridiculous and in love. 

 

After the first night of kissing and smiling and talking aimlessly about the future, Isco assumed it was over, that the alcohol had done it to them. Isco had always related love to a fury but this was something else entirely. This was a gentle, rising happiness that made him smile in the early hours of the morning when no well-adjusted person was awake. So he shouldn’t have been surprised that this love, nothing like a fury, was not over after the first night of weak and aimless wandering. 

 

So the next night they snuck out again and, this time without the influence of alcohol, Toni told him that he would like it very much if they could go out on a proper date. 

 

“I’d like that too,” Isco said. “We just have to keep it a secret for now.” 

 

Toni frowned. “That’s not a proper date then, is it? If it’s in secret?” 

 

Isco smiled. “I’m not sure where you come from, but where I live, it’s the only way to do things.” 

 

“That doesn’t seem like a good way to be happy.” 

 

But it wasn’t about happiness. It was about self-preservation, and that’s exactly what Isco told him, but he left out the bits about his parents and his schoolmates and his image, and he most especially left out the bits about Alvaro and their past and the fact that, even if he wasn’t still Alvaro’s, he was always _Alvaro’s_. 

 

Toni looked at him and said, “I don’t understand, but it’s your way of doing things, and I can accept that.” 

 

And they went and ate so much ice cream that they were clutching their sides until the early hours of the morning and laughing weakly because laughing any harder would have made them puke. They fell asleep slumped against the outside walls of the dorm, and when it was time for breakfast with the campers, the other counselors found them there and laughed and asked what was wrong, and Toni said, _Nothing_ in a tone that made Isco dream of him beyond sleep. 

 

But because they had responsibilities, they didn’t have time for a proper date. Toni was busy with his group of campers because he cared very much about them and, beyond anything, he was reasonable, and it was only sensibleto care for the people under his charge. For Isco, it was Alvaro that sucked up his time. The other boy was busy ignoring Maria and wishing that he wasn’t ignoring Maria. 

 

He stole Isco away when Isco was trying to steal Toni away, and they sat down on the rickety wooden camp chairs, and Alvaro told him about the strange, incurable passion that Maria stirred within him, how he couldn’t stop thinking about her and how he couldn’t bring himself to be passionate about her in the _right_ way. As if there was a right way to feel. 

 

“Well what do you feel for her?” Isco asked, not understanding. 

 

“I don’t know,” Alvaro said, in a pleading tone, as if he could just look at Isco and make everything clear. “I think maybe if I cleared things up... maybe then I would be able to see past this cloud in my head. Maybe then I would understand how I feel for her, but I can’t see past--” 

 

He broke off and left it unfinished, as he had left many things unfinished, and Isco rested his back against the chair. “You can’t see past what?” 

 

“About last summer,” Alvaro began again, as he had in front of the lake many days before. “I wish we could clear that up.” 

 

“I’m not sure how to,” Isco admitted, looking away. 

 

Toni was walking toward them, and Isco stood up, wishing to be far away from the conversation that was about to take place. It was something that needed to happen, and Alvaro was doing his half of the job, but Isco was so good at running, so good at running from everything that made him miserable, so he greeted Toni with a wave and spit out some nonsense about losing his lanyard even though they both knew it was in his left pocket where he’d stuffed it after lunch. 

 

Alvaro stood too and said, “Alright, well... later?” 

 

“Yeah, later.” Isco clapped him on the shoulder. 

 

As they walked back down to the dorms, Toni scratched his chin and said, “So what was that about?” 

 

“What do you mean?” 

 

“You and Alvaro. Seemed like something was wrong with him.” 

 

“He’s confused. Him and Maria.” 

 

Toni unlocked the dorm, and he stood in the doorway a moment to listen, but no one was inside. He locked it behind them and stowed the key in his back pocket. “I wasn’t aware he was interested.” 

 

“He doesn’t seem to know whether he is yet or not.” 

 

“And that is what’s upsetting him?” 

 

There was a pause, and then Isco shrugged, playing it off casually. “Yeah, I guess.” 

 

Toni had this way of looking at him, steady and unemotional. He didn’t waste his emotions on the in-between moments. He wasn’t pointlessly passionate, as Dani sometimes seemed to be, and he didn’t invest himself in unnecessary heartache as Alvaro did, so his gaze was always balanced and logical, and Isco felt like he was under a microscope, caught in a lie. 

 

But he just said, “Alright,” knowing full well that Isco was lying and perhaps also knowing that he had a reason to be. 

 

The dorms were locked, and there was no one else there, and their responsibilities were finished for the day, so they moved closer until they lips were touching and they kissed until the dusk had turned into something much darker and their kissing was nearly a panicked frenzy against a wall. The lie was forgotten and all that mattered was skin against skin, the heat their bodies created, the fire that was stirring in both of them. 

 

Toni’s hand inched down, and Isco broke away from him, uncertain. He was unknowable when he looked down at his hands and said, “I don’t think I can.” 

 

Toni nodded. He said, “That’s okay. We don’t have to do that.” He seemed unbothered, calm, collected. 

 

Isco began to wonder if it wasn’t just about sex after all, and he pushed forward again to kiss the other boy sweetly on the corner of his mouth. He wanted to say something profound and gentle and kind, an acknowledgement of Toni’s character, but a key was turning in the lock, and Isco dove for his shirt, and Toni dove the other direction to keep the secret he never wanted to keep in the first place. 

 

Maria walked in with Alvaro leaning against her shoulder. She stamped her foot impatiently, oblivious to the disheveled state of the other boys. “He’s really drunk. I’m pretty sure Dani was hiding alcohol somewhere, and now Alvaro is--” She peeled him away from her body and dumped him on one of the beds. “He’s very drunk.” 

 

Toni, still calm, stood up and said, “Thanks for bringing him over. We’ll make sure he sleeps it off.” 

 

“You better,” she said kindly. And then she seemed to notice their disheveled state for the first time, and she glanced at them suspiciously. “What are you two doing in here? I swear, I have to watch all you boys constantly because you’re always trying to stir up trouble.” She looked at them very sternly. “Now what were you two doing in here?” 

 

“Drugs,” Isco said quickly. “It was drugs.” 

 

Toni rolled his eyes, and Maria caught on that he wasn’t serious. She opened the door and said, “Make sure he doesn’t choke on his own vomit, yeah?” And then it shut behind her and Isco felt a little guilty for making fun of her willingness to do the right thing. He told himself he would apologize later. 

 

“Really,” Toni muttered, half-kidding, “You would rather go down for drugs than admit what we were up to?” 

 

“Drugs are easier to explain,” he said seriously. 

 

He walked to Alvaro to turn him over, to sit him up, to wipe the side of his face. He sat beside him and held one of his hands and spoke his name gently. Toni was watching from the corner, and he understood suddenly with a new kind of clarity, but he didn’t say a word because he wasn’t sure that Isco even knew himself yet. 

 

“Hey,” he said quietly, “I’m going to let you sleep on the bottom bunk tonight, alright?” 

 

Alvaro opened one eye and nodded sleepily. “Fine,” he said, somewhat aggressively. “Fine, fine, fine. Don’t care where I sleep. Just wanted you to know--” He cut off, and then he hurriedly sat up and grabbedthe well-placed trash can in the corner of the room. He threw up straight into it and kept blabbering. “You don’t want to talk to me, and Maria wants to talk to me too much, and she has hair like the sun.” 

 

After that he dropped back to his pillow and kept murmuring nonsense about the sun, and it would have all been very sweet if Isco hadn’t suddenly become very aware of Toni’s presence in the room, and then he was terrified that something was fucked up between them, but it just took one glance over his shoulder to confirm the opposite. 

 

He stood up and walked over to the sink, wet a towel, and handed it to Isco to wipe Alvaro’s face clean, and they spent the next few minutes arranging the other boy and making sure not to knock his limbs too hard on anything. They examined him from either side and then looked up at each other and smiled. 

 

Isco tapped Alvaro on the shoulder and said, “Sleep it off, alright? We’ll talk tomorrow.” 

 

But they didn’t talk the next day or the day after that or the day after that. Isco spent his time with Toni, and they kissed hard enough to make their lips red and swollen, but they didn’t go farther than that. After that first time, Toni didn’t try anything again because he had been asked not to and, beyond anything, he was reasonable, and it was not reasonable to hurt another person or to not respect their wishes. It was reasonable to be right, to be just. 

 

That was the only disconcerting thing about Toni, and it was what made him more interesting than the others: he didn’t do the right thing because it was the right thing; he most often did the right thing because it was logical. It made sense not to hurt other people. He didn’t hurt them because it made sense not to. He was kind to people because it made sense to be kind to them. If he had no reason to cause harm, he did not. But his goodness wasn’t out of some kind of moral obligation. It was strictly because he refused to be foolish. 

 

This robotic form of morality along with Isco’s increased amount of time spent with Toni prompted Alvaro to draw up a chair beside Maria and Isco and announce that Toni seemed like the sort of person who would be afraid of anal, and Maria looked at him scornfully and said, “Who wouldn’t be afraid of anal?” 

 

And he returned the scornful look and said, “Weak. If you ignore the ass, you’re taking so much of your sex life away, don’t you agree, Isco?” 

 

Isco shrugged. He played with the bracelet one of his campers had made him. 

 

Maria rolled her eyes. “You can talk all you want about how great anal is, but I bet you anything that you wouldn’t be able to do it. You can dish it out, but you can’t take it.” 

 

Alvaro rolled his eyes back, but he was silenced, and he sat back against his lawn chair. 

 

“Anyway,” he said a bit later, “Toni seems like the sort of person who would have a very uneventful sex life.” 

 

“So what?” Maria shot back. “Stay out of other people’s business, maybe?” 

 

She had long since recovered from the shock of Alvaro’s beauty. She still blushed sometimes, when they looked at each other a certain way, but every time he opened his mouth, a blush transformed her cheeks for a different reason. Normally her face would heat up and she would angrily turn his words back on him, or she would stretch out on her reclining chair and look up at the sun and let it heat her cheeks before she looked at him disdainfully and told him something impolite. 

 

“What do you think, Isco?” 

 

It was his way of addressing the issue they refused to address, playing on the knowledge that Isco had developed a crush on Toni. It was unkind, but it was Alvaro through and through. 

 

“What do I think about what?” he asked innocently, hoping that Alvaro would rethink this course of action. 

 

He did not. He folded his hands in his lap, ignoring Maria’s annoyed sigh, and said, “What do you think Toni’s sex life is like?” 

 

“I don’t know,” he answered, somewhat irritably, “I don’t see how it’s any of my business.” 

 

Alvaro stared him down. “Don’t you think he seems boring? Don’t you think he’d be into boring sex?” And before Isco could open his mouth to shoot that theory down, Alvaro said, “Speaking of sex, let’s play a game where we talk about what everyone is into.” 

 

Maria practically spat on him. “Just because we’re your dream threesome doesn’t mean this is ever going to become a reality.” 

 

“I liked you better when you were nice.” 

 

“You liked me better when I was silent,” she returned. “And I don’t like boys when they prefer me silent.” 

 

Isco mindlessly flipped through the pages of a magazine, sleepy with the laziness of summertime, confused by the angry flirtation beside him, torn between wanting to defend Toni and wanting to curl up deep inside himself and run away from Alvaro’s line of questioning. 

 

“Isco?” Alvaro tried again. “What are you into?” 

 

Isco kept flipping through the magazine, wanting to say _nothing. leave me alone. just leave me alone and stop making me feel alien_. But he said nothing and kept flipping until Alvaro was calling his name again and waving a hand beneath his eyes and Maria was practically yelling at Alvaro to stop it. 

 

Finally he looked up and Maria’s features were full of anxiety and Alvaro was staring him down with a steady, even aggression that seemed ill-timed and was definitely unwanted. 

 

“What?” he said. “I was reading this article about begonias.” 

 

“Well stop reading that article about begonias,” Alvaro said exasperatingly. “Because your best friend is trying to ask you about sex.” 

 

“What, you need advice?” 

 

“No,” he said, sticking out his tongue childishly, and Isco was again struck with a familiar desire to want to be close to him, to want to kiss his words into the other boy’s mouth, to want to touch the top of his head and feel how soft his hair was, to comb his fingers through it and to feel Alvaro want him in return. 

 

“Then why do we need to have this conversation?” he asked politely. 

 

Maria backed him up, and she was upset enough for the both of them, and this finally drove Alvaro away. Isco and Maria had become fast friends, tied by their mutual desire and their mutual disgust. They were both attracted and repulsed by everything that Alvaro was and, though they never breathed a word of it, they could look at each other and _know_ they were part of something together. Maria’s interest was far less old and far less complicated, but she anticipated that it would grow its own thorns soon enough, so she respected Isco’s patient and quietly frustrated way of dealing with his feelings. 

 

She looked at him very oddly for a second and she stuck out a hand to brush against his arm as he continued to flip through the Home and Garden magazine. “Are you alright?” she asked. “You just look a little shaken up.” 

 

“I’m fine,” he said. He shrugged once and did the funny scrunching thing with his mouth that he did when he was nervous. 

 

“Isco,” she said carefully, “Have you never...?” She gestured strangely. 

 

“What is that,” he said blankly. “What is that thing you’re doing with your hands?” 

 

“Have you never, _you know_... done it with someone?” 

 

He realized what she was talking about, but it was Maria, so he felt like playing with her, and he shook his head in confusion. “You’re going to have to be a little more specific. I’m sorry. What the hell are you talking about?” 

 

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and checked behind her as if she was saying something very bad or upsetting. In that moment, he adored her more than all of them put together, for her innocence and for her lack thereof, for the fact that she could contain ten thousand wonderful qualities, for the fact that she could understand her worth and because she lost that understanding sometimes. 

 

“Have you never had sex before?” 

 

And then he realized that her discomfort was not for her benefit at all but for his. She checked behind her, not because she felt as though she were saying something foul or dirty but because she knew that if Alvaro or one of the campers overheard, he was _done_. 

 

He could have lied to her, but the truth was right there in her eyes, and he could lie to people if they didn’t know they were being lied to, but lying to someone who could so clearly see they were being lied to--- that was much more difficult. 

 

He said, “Alright, fine. No, I’ve never done it.” 

 

She stared at him a moment. “There’s nothing wrong with that. You know that, right? There’s nothing wrong with doing it and there’s nothing wrong with not doing it. People act like it’s such a fucking big deal, but it’s nothing. Or if you want to make it something, it’s _something_. People attach unnecessary meaning to something that is, in the end, just an act. Whatever you want it to mean, that’s what it means.” 

 

“I know,” he said. “But there’s a difference between knowing and feeling. I can accept this truth in my mind a thousand times over, but I can’t accept it--” He broke off, gestured to his chest. “I don’t _feel_ like it’s okay.” 

 

She nodded, pursing her lips, and it was in moments like these that he could understand exactly why every fantastic university in the country looked at her and wanted her. 

 

“Can I ask why?” she said after a moment. “Why have you never done it before?” 

 

“I’ve never really--” He frowned. “I’ve never really wanted to. I’ve always wanted to want to. I’ve prayed for desire more than I’ve prayed for anything else, but in the end, I’m only given more desire to _want_.” 

 

He finally confessed what was going on with him and Toni, and Maria was astounded and pleased, and suddenly she understood all the times she had half-caught them, and she tucked another strand of hair behind her ear and said, “But you don’t want to sleep with him?” 

 

He didn’t know how to sum up what he wanted, so he bit his lip uncertainly and admitted, “I wish I did.” Then, in a quieter voice, “I’m worried it’s not going to be enough for anyone. For Toni, right now, but later too. I’m worried that I’m never going to be cured of this, and no one is going to want--” 

 

Maria nodded, and she patted his hand in a way that was only comforting and not condescending, and her eyes seemed to glow in the hazy, humid evening. “I don’t know how to tell you that it’s going to be alright because people are horrible.” 

 

“They’re not all bad.” 

 

“No, they’re not all bad, but it’s an undeniable truth that people are horrible.” She said this with certainty, with no trace of self-pity, but her eyes carried a different sort of knowledge, more terrifying and more powerful than he wanted to know, but he was drawn to that knowledge with a scared sort of curiosity. 

 

“Why are they horrible?” 

 

“Because they take what they want. So if you’ve got someone like Toni who is okay with the way that you are and doesn’t ask for more and doesn’t take more, be glad that you have it. Because that’s the way everyone should be, but it’s the way no one _is_.” 

 

He told her as best he could that he was grateful that she had listened, and then he had to get up and move around because he was anxious and guilty and concerned about Alvaro and about Toni and about Maria for what people had taken from her. For a long time after Isco had gone, she sat there under the night sky wrapped in a blanket. He stood at the dorm and watched as she tugged a magazine toward her and then as she grew bored of it and instead wrapped her arms around herself and looked like she was about to cry but did not. 

 

He met Toni again that night, but this time, he said they should go on a proper date, and when Toni asked what he meant, Isco said, “I don’t mean in secret this time. I mean let’s go on a proper date.” 

 

So Toni decided they would have dinner on the dock, and he brought three blankets and a basket with food, and just before going to meet him, Isco went up to Alvaro and said, “I’m going on a date with Toni” in a tone that made certain Alvaro would not challenge him about it. 

 

Alvaro said, “Fine,” but he didn’t look like everything was fine. 

 

He didn’t know what to do, but he knew he had done his best, so Isco walked over to the dock, and he sat down across from Toni, and he felt like they were having a proper date for the first time. He could fool himself into thinking secrecy didn’t change anything, but secrecy changed everything. Under the cover of the night, he could pretend something was real, something was a possibility, but when his friends looked at them as a couple, he felt their discerning eyes, and he knew he had to make certain decisions in order to stay alive. It was about self-preservation. That’s what relationships were. They weren’t meant to be a secret because anything could survive under carefully monitored conditions, but out in the real world where things got very cold and very distant and, at times, very lonely, only the strongest would survive. So Isco decided to test this relationship against reality. 

 

Maria was supportive and friendly, and she often rearranged the seating arrangements so Toni and Isco could sit together, and when they were having a quiet moment together at the lake or in the dorms or just after breakfast, she left them alone and tried to funnel the stream of campers and counselors around them. 

 

Alvaro was the exact opposite. He tried so hard to be normal that he seemed to lull himself into a state of forgetful calm. He acted as though Isco and Toni were just friends. He felt welcome to any conversation they were having, and he invited himself along whenever he heard they were going somewhere. 

 

One morning Alvaro and Isco were hiking and Toni was still sleeping, and they stopped at the edge of a cliff and looked down. Alvaro kicked a rock over the edge. 

 

He said, “We should probably talk at some point.” 

 

“Yeah, definitely,” Isco said, pretending he very much wanted to talk as well. He kicked a rock over the edge too and watched as it tumbled all the way down, hitting one ledge with a loud crack, another with a distant bang, and finally hitting the bottom with a sound like a bird taking flight. 

 

“About last summer,” Alvaro began again, as he had so many times before. “I just wanted to tell you that--” He cut off because Isco was kicking the ground with his foot, more invested in carving his name in the dust than the conversation they needed to have. 

 

“Isco,” Alvaro said. He touched his arm, and Isco practically jumped out of his skin. “I just wanted to tell you that I’m sorry, for whatever I did wrong. If I did something to...” He swallowed. “To hurt you. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to damage what we had. I never meant--” 

 

“It’s okay,” he said hurriedly, forcing a smile. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Want to head back to camp?” 

 

“No,” Alvaro said, pulling back. “I really don’t want to head back to camp without talking about this. I’ve spent the whole summer--” 

 

“We’re only halfway through summer. It’s not like--” 

 

“The whole fucking year,” he snapped. 

 

The wind whipped around them, and Isco wiped the sweat from his forehead. 

 

“There’s really nothing to talk about, okay? We’re still friends. We thought we were more, but we weren’t. There’s nothing wrong with failing.” 

 

Alvaro shook his head, lost and focused and angry. “But _we_ didn’t fail. _I_ failed you.” 

 

Isco stiffened. Thinking about it was like pressing on a freshly bandaged wound. He thought back to that summer after senior year, how they still had one foot in the drama and the immaturity that characterized high school. He remembered Alvaro’s longer hair, less defined muscles, softer face. 

 

“We never said we were exclusive, alright?” His voice was harsher when he acknowledged the past. “You didn’t fail me. We were just looking for different things.” 

 

“But I knew that you didn’t want to sleep with me. And I went to get it somewhere else. That’s not... I should have talked to you first. I should have--” 

 

There was a short burst of anger in Isco’s chest, and he turned to face Alvaro, furious and detached. “I’m done talking about this.” 

 

But Alvaro, not to be outdone, had his own anger to display, so he reached forward senselessly and grabbed Isco’s water bottle from the side of his backpack. He turned and threw it over the edge of the cliff as hard as he could manage and turned back to Isco as if to say _How do you feel now_. It was a childish and ridiculous gesture, but Isco was scandalized and horrified. 

 

“Are you fucking kidding me?” 

 

“Are _you_ fucking kidding me?” Alvaro returned. “You run from everything. Maybe I went and fucked someone else because you never talked to me. If you had just sat there and explained to me that you weren’t ready or _something_ , jesus, something-- maybe then I would have understood, but you never let anyone understand you.” 

 

“You never try and understand people.” 

 

“Fuck you. I put everything into that relationship. I spent the whole year thinking about you.” There was a pain in his eyes that matched the pain in Isco’s bones. “You ignored my calls and my texts for three months before you send me some fucked up email about reconnecting. I mean, who even uses email anymore?”

 

“I _like_ emailing people.” He stepped forward, and Alvaro nearly pushed him away, but he was too surprised and confused to make any overtly aggressive action, so Isco slipped easily under his outstretched arm to grab his water bottle. 

 

“Yes, good, Isco. Let’s talk about the most effective modes of communication instead of addressing the real issue.” He made no move to stop the destruction of his water supply. 

 

Isco turned and threw his bottle, and it bounced against the side of the cliff before cracking against the distant floor. “I hope you’re fucking dehydrated by the time you get back to camp.” 

 

Alvaro shook his head. There was a bitter amusement in the way his lips flicked upward for a brief moment, and then there was a wave of pain that touched his features gently, then harder, each sparking against the pain individually. It was a personal kind of suffering for every part of his body. 

 

“You were my best friend,” he said. 

 

“You should have just dropped it,” Isco replied evenly. “You should have just let it go.” 

 

“I _can’t_. I’m trying to move on, and I can’t. I just want to fix this, so I can move on and be better.” 

 

There was a strange coldness that gripped Isco, a coldness that he normally didn’t associate with anger, but a cold fury that was far more terrifying than the bursts of heat that normally accompanied his outbursts. He could look Alvaro in the eye and say anything. Lost in that feeling, he could have tossed anything over the cliff. 

 

“You’ll never be better,” he said. “You’ll just always be you. You push until you find the truth, and then if you don’t like that truth, you just keep pushing. You can’t manipulate truth to make yourself feel better, but you will always try.” 

 

Isco held his gaze to make him understand that every word was carefully chosen, and then he tightened the straps on his backpack and walked back to camp, checking behind him every so often to make sure Alvaro wasn’t too close behind. He wasn’t, and Isco found himself disappointed. 

 

 When he reached camp, he headed straight for his bunk and he didn’t come out until lunchtime. He found his small group with Toni’s, and they exchanged looks over the kids’ heads. But Toni didn’t make a big deal out of it. He just welcomed Isco back with a clap on his shoulder and a smile, and he explained the game they were teaching to the campers. 

 

But Isco, still upset and confused and indecisive, led his group over to Maria’s in the shade of a great oak, and they spoke quietly about nothing until their groups had finished their lunches and the games. They sent them all off for free time near the dock with the adult chaperones, and it was only then that Maria turned to him and asked what was going on. 

 

He stared at her chapped lips and her cheeks darkened by the sun. Her eyes were alive with curiosity, and he was alive with the curiosity of what it would be like to kiss her and feel Alvaro’s wrath and sorrow. 

 

“Nothing,” he said. “Alvaro and I just had an argument. Everything is fine.” 

 

“Okay. All of those things contradict each other.” 

 

He shrugged, and then he saw Dani walking by, so he brushed the grass off the back of his pants and told Maria half-heartedly that he would speak to her later if they had time. He grabbed his soda and ran after Dani, desperate for a conversation that wouldn’t pull at his heart so much, manipulating him into feeling things he didn’t want to feel and thinking about events that were too far lost in the past to ever change. 

 

“Dani,” he said, catching up to him in the garden where he was watering and trimming. 

 

He sported a pair of floral gardening gloves, a straw farmer’s hat, and an old camp t-shirt with a large hole in one shoulder. His cheeks were red from the sun, and he squinted up at Isco as he bent down to water a dying plant. 

 

“Isco, it’s good to see you. Thought you died on a hike or something. Your group was looking for you.” He sounded unconcerned. 

 

“Oh, yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. “Well, here I am. Not dead.” 

 

Dani looked at him. “I hope you’re planning on recycling that can. The earth is dying.” 

 

“I was,” he lied, setting his soda down next to Dani’s water bottle. “Can I help you out here?” 

 

Dani turned to the gardening basket he carried with him and handed Isco a pair of gloves and some shears, saying, “Of course. We could always use some help.” 

 

They set to work, and Isco poured everything into the task at hand, working hard on each and every plant, removing weeds and carefully watering and taking the earth into his hands to reshape it into something desirable. His hands were filthy, and the back of his neck was burning, and he could feel the sweat staining his t-shirt, but he made no move to leave, even after Dani said he was taking a break to swim. He kept working, not stopping when he pricked his finger on a thorn, not when he got dirt in his eyes from rubbing his dirty hands on his face by accident, not when he moved too far back and kicked his can of soda. He was merely mildly discouraged, not broken into quitting. 

 

As he worked on the garden, he thought about Alvaro and he thought about Toni, and he thought about Maria and how perhaps it was not Alvaro who had let him down most recently. He made a mistake by not being entirely honest, but it could have been solved by communication, but Isco would never. He would never, could never communicate. He always felt like he was speaking in a different language from everyone else. If he so much as opened his mouth to speak the truth about love, about sex, about how he saw the world around him, it would only result in the blind confusion of those around him and the resulting shame that came with being misunderstood. 

 

He didn’t stop in the garden until hours later when his ears were ringing from blocking out everything but his own breathing, and his eyes were filled with dust and sweat, and his hands were cracked and bloody. His mind was both cluttered and clear, as though he had taken all the information and all the feelings and organized them into tiny little boxes and stuffed those boxes into filing cabinets. Still in existence, they were a burden, but they were an organized burden that he could manage. 

 

He put Dani’s gardening supplies back into his basket just as Dani was returning from his swim, wet and short and angry. He shook the water out of his hair and put back on his tattered gardening t-shirt. He nodded to Isco as he left, and Isco raised his hand wearily in response. 

 

He trudged back to housing to shower, and when he cleaned the fog from the mirror and looked at himself, he realized something had changed. He didn’t know _what_ yet, but looking into his own eyes, he felt like there were two different versions of himself. Before and After, Better and Worse, the version that was honest with himself and the version that only dealt in lies. 

 

He threw his towel on the bed and dressed, and when he looked up, Toni was just stepping into the room. With purpose, Toni walked toward him, keeping his distance until Isco had finished pulling the t-shirt over his head. 

 

He said, “What’s up with you today?” 

 

He thought about saying nothing, but he bit his lip and said, “I got into a fight with Alvaro.” 

 

“I see.” He didn’t really. See, that is. But he tried to, and that was the greatest thing about Toni. He understood Isco, and when he didn’t understand, he _tried_ to understand. It is often said that there is only winning and losing, only doing or not doing -- that trying doesn’t matter-- but it matters in the long run because intentions matter and character matters. Character is made up of more than victories, defeats, and a list of what is done or undone. 

 

“Yeah,” Isco said, and he reached over to adjust the blanket on his bed. 

 

“Are you ever going to tell me what all of this is about?” 

 

In an instant, he longed for the days of the previous weeks, when they were all carefree, when they knew nothing about each other but the basic, on-the-paper facts that translated into easy friendships. 

 

“I don’t know,” he said, with some difficulty. “It’s hard to talk about, alright?” 

 

“Alright,” Toni agreed. He touched Isco’s arm. “You don’t have to talk to me about anything if you don’t want to. But I’m just saying that sometimes it’s these kinds of things that need to be talked about most. You know? The hardest things to talk about are often the ones that really need to be addressed.” 

 

“Me and Alvaro...” He drifted off helplessly. “There’s no... there’s no reason to talk about it anymore. All it does is bring up the past. The past is the past, and it’s better left dead. I don’t want to drag stuff up again. It doesn’t solve anything.” 

 

“But the past isn’t dead,” Toni said softly. “As much as you want it to be. No matter how long ago.” 

 

After that, Isco told him that he couldn’t be cramped up anymore, and he very abruptly stood up and they walked down to the dock again, just as it was getting dark and the campers were enjoying an early dinner. The two of them stripped down to their underwear, and they waded into the water, and they swam and splashed around beneath the purple sky. 

 

Finally they were in the deeper parts of the lake, and their hands met underwater by mistake, so they moved closer to make it all on purpose, and when their lips met above water, Isco knew that after the kiss ended, speaking was no longer a necessity but something he felt free to do. 

 

So he explained, “Last summer, Alvaro and I were dating. We never said that it was exclusive or anything, but we never talked about seeing other people. And he wasn’t seeing other people. Neither of us were until we were making out on his bed one day, and I told him that I didn’t want to sleep with him. I wasn’t ready, you know. I didn’t really want to. I didn’t know if I would ever want to or if I would ever be ready, and I told him that because he was my best friend, and we were together. A week later, I found him with someone else.” 

 

Toni’s hands were on the back of his neck, and he moved forward to kiss the side of Isco’s mouth gently. He murmured into the kiss, “And so that’s why you two have been strange all summer.” 

 

“Distant, yeah. When I found him with someone else, I just walked out. He followed me, and I told him that he could do whatever the fuck he wanted, but the thing is -- I knew I had no right to be mad because-- but we never talked about it, and it was like-- sex, you know? It felt like it was all about that because we never really... “ 

 

Toni said nothing because Isco was still moving his lips soundlessly, wishing he could express himself without words, without motions. Wishing that silence could carry meaning that words could not-- and silence could do that, but it could not impart this kind of information in the middle of the lake at dusk, not even then, when silences were most beautiful. 

 

“I just worry that people will give up on me if they realize I’m not going to fuck them.” 

 

“People are not,” Toni said. “I am not.” 

 

As the camp was nearing its end, Isco and Toni grew closer. They spent almost every night together with their small groups or alone, out by the dock or sometimes working out in the garden. But when they weren’t together, Isco spent his time with Maria or Dani, ignoring Alvaro. He gardened with Dani and swam with Maria. He learned which plants grew best in the sun, which in the shade; he learned which were poisonous and which were used in herbal remedies. Maria didn’t join them in the garden, but she swam lap after lap with Isco in the pool and then in the lake, and he lost himself in the water like he lost himself beneath the sun in the garden. 

 

Maria had just exited the lake, and Isco was admiring her long, lean body and the way her hair hung down her back when Alvaro appeared on the dock, fully dressed with his hands in his pockets. Not at all interested in swimming. He said something to Maria, and she rolled her eyes. 

 

As she bent to retrieve her towel, she said to Isco, “I can’t wait for you two to sort your shit out. It’s really fucking with the group dynamic, you know that right? Asier is afraid to speak to either one of you because he thinks it will seem like he’s taken a side. Dani doesn’t speak to Alvaro because he thinks gardening with you means he’s with you. Toni and Alvaro don’t even _look_ at each other.” 

 

Isco pulled himself out of the water, looking only at Maria and pointedly ignoring Alvaro. “And you?” 

 

She threw her towel down. “I’m sick of both of you.” 

 

“See you at dinner,” he called to her retreating form. 

 

“Fuck off,” she grumbled back. 

 

Then it was just the two of them, and Isco was standing there shirtless and wet, feeling vulnerable and cold despite the heat. Alvaro was looking at him stonily, sullen and petulant like a child after receiving the no dessert punishment. 

 

“Do you need something,” Isco said coldly. 

 

“Not from you.” 

 

Isco could tell he was clenching his fists in his pocket from the way the fabric was bunched up and because he always did that when he was angry and because his mouth got all squished and upset at the same time. It filled him with a terrible loneliness when he realized how well he knew his best friend and how much they had damaged because of their shared mistakes. 

 

Alvaro still looked upset and like he didn’t want to give in, but he continued anyway, “Look, I’m not done being mad at you and I don’t think we should go back to being friends right away. I’ve arranged for someone else to drive me home.” 

 

“Great,” Isco said, instantly annoyed. “Is that all? You wanted to inform me of your travel plans? Sometimes I wonder if you can tell that I really...don’t...give a shit.” 

 

Alvaro looked away, swallowing hard. He was struggling to contain his anger and his pride, and Isco was goading him into losing it. 

 

“No. I mean, yeah, I wanted you to know that we’re not fixed. But we can, like, exist in the same space. It’s not war.” 

 

“Obviously we can’t exist in the same space if you can’t even drive home with me.” 

 

Alvaro groaned and rubbed his forehead. “Oh my god. That’s not what I-- I didn’t mean for the conversation to go like this, okay? i just wanted to tell you that you-- you make yourself unknowable, but you don’t make yourself unlovable. Alright? Whether we’re ever friends again or not-- and it’s really fucked up if we end our friendship over this, by the way-- I just want you to know that.” 

 

Isco just stared back at him in stunned silence, so Alvaro looked at him and said again, “Unknowable not unlovable.” Then, “I love you.” And he turned around to leave. 

 

But Alvaro leaving didn’t mean the end of what he had said. He had left, and the conversation had ended, but his words echoed in Isco’s head for ages because those words were the ones he had been waiting for. For so long, they were the only words that he truly _needed_ to hear, but now that he had heard them, they were only an acknowledgement of fact, not a fulfillment of feeling. They solidified something that had been growing between them, but those words were as good as empty. Though it was solid, that feeling finally brought to light was also put to rest. 

 

In the end, he realized that some feeling for Alvaro would be there for a very long time because they had once been a part of each other as if they shared a body but perhaps it would not be there always. In acknowledging what they were, Isco’s restless passion had finally found peace, and the love for another had taken root in him. In an effort to not be defined solely by the strength of these passions, he forced himself to realize that what he had with Toni would not last forever either. 

 

But for now it was: 

 

“Alvaro told me that he loves me.”

 

“And do you love him too?” 

 

“No,” Isco said. “I think I’m in love with someone else.” 

 

**Author's Note:**

> As usual, your comments are always appreciated and taken into account. I'm working on answering the comments that I have not yet answered, and I apologize for the amount of time it's taken me to get back to you. 
> 
> I'm working my way through a stack of books on my floor, but it's slow work at the moment because I'm also starting to learn Latin and sort out all my first year issues (financial aid, roommate preference forms, finding a job on campus, buying stuff for my dorm room). Not to mention I'm coming to terms with the fact that I'm moving all the way across the country and the U.S. is huge. Have you ever realized how huge the U.S. is??? It's huge. 
> 
> Anyway, here's what I've worked on so far this summer:  
> One Hundred Years of Solitude, Fear and Loathing in La Liga, The Odyssey. Currently in the middle of the Odyssey and I just want him to get home so I can stop reading it and go back and reread the iliad instead. the iliad is a 10/10 and the odyssey is the less hot younger brother.
> 
> Also, I realize that a common theme in basically all of my fics is a lack of communication//problems with communicating. I wonder why that is. Food for thought.


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